The data consist of transcribed interviews of retired men who spent time on a market square in a town in Finland and fieldnotes containing the observations of the researcher. The men were interviewed either alone or in groups. The questions in the interviews were related to the public space and its use as well as the social networks between persons spending time in the square. Questions covered, for instance, the kind of days and time spent on the square, subjects of discussion, several aspects of the square as a meeting place, and different aspects of the group they met with. The square in which the study was conducted is a market square typical to Finnish medium-sized towns. The dataset is only available in Finnish.